The chokehold that Therin’s smile had on Noran was distracting. Even with a low fever, all he wanted to do was recreate that innocent grin on paper. He scratched out the drawings he had done, a series of just lips and teeth in various stages of happiness and the same pair of eyes repeated over and over. He put his head in his hands then ran them through his hair and stood, stretching and shaking out his frozen limbs. The fire in his room had gone out hours ago and he had not bothered to relight it. He strode to the window and pressed his feverish forehead to the panes, his breath steaming the glass up immediately. The chill of the room settled across him and his teeth chattered.
Therin had been gone for almost a month and Noran had read and re-read his letters so many times they were smudging. They were lacklustre and trite, as Therin’s writing had always been, but there was no doubting that the pages had once been touched by his hands. His handwriting was atrocious, childlike and rushed, but Noran treasured every word. They were addressed to a brother but a lover read them with greedy need.
A knock on his door shattered his thoughts, recalling him to the present, reminding him of his part in Therin’s banishment. Anger, not guilt, fueled him now, and he turned from the window as Mara entered, carrying a tray and a soft, gentle smile.
“I’m glad to see you up.” She set the tray down on his desk, pushed aside his drawing things and turned to face him. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” he said and he brushed past her to pick up the cup of hot tea she had brought, adding a few spoons of sugar and grasping the heated cup in his shaking hands.
He ignored the burning itch of the spots on his face and body, instead focusing on the way the steam curled off his tea in the chilled room. It was these spots that had alerted Devan to the dangers that Noran’s illness posed to the household. Mara alone had already had the pox and she immediately offered to stay behind while the house was put under quarantine. Noran watched her move about his room, her slim body and easy movements hateful to him.
He closed his eyes against that hatred and breathed in the minty warmth from the cup he held. He hated that he had to do what he did but Mara was dangerous. She eyed Noran with such a gaze that even his own jealousy was set aside to make way for the unease. Something about her was wrong, and her obsessive attachment to Therin was motivated by something other than attraction. He could not shake the feeling that she was not what she seemed. Her smile was too gentle, her hands too quick, her eyes too clever.
Guided by this gut instinct, Noran had once snuck into her room while the pair had been occupied, Therin dogging her while she worked. He had searched as long as he dared, as carefully as he could, but found nothing except the portrait he had once sketched of Therin sitting by the pond. His name had been smudged out of the bottom of the picture.
Footsteps outside her door had made him jump and he hastily replaced the stolen image. Knowing she had it made him uneasy. She would surely glean more from it than the average person, he reasoned. He had slipped out the window, shimmying with ease down the lattice that lined the back of the manse, dropping into the flowerbeds below.
When he tried to return to her room again, at a later date, the door was locked. He had not done a good job of hiding his presence and she had taken to keeping the lock engaged when she wasn’t within her room. He had tried several more times before giving it up as a lost job.
“You let the fire go out,” she said and he detected a trace of annoyance in her voice. “You’ll never feel better if you’re cold. You have to break the fever.” She knelt and began rebuilding the fire, her back to him. He imagined shoving her into the fire, letting the flames consume her. The vitriolic anger he held within startled him. It coursed through him, burning and blackening his heart. His heart beat hard against the rising fever, throwing the hatred into stark relief against the immediate threat of illness. It felt like wasted energy, this much anger. But it did not subside.
He sipped the tea and winced at the bitterness. He had not expected it to be medicinal but he understood that the willow bark would help ease the discomfort of the aches and pains he would surely have to endure again as the pox ravaged him. Already, the first wave of the pustules had burst but the ones forming were twice as painful, twice as large, and he felt them ache deeply within his skin. He worried about the large one that was forming near his eye. Would he lose his vision?
“Drink,” she insisted as she rose, the fire crackling behind her. The room had gone smokey, suddenly. The spicy smell of some herb that she had put on the fire assaulted him and he blinked his burning eyes. Her smile was warm, comforting, fake. He glanced at her once before letting his eyes fall on the desk where his scratched out drawings still lay.
Therin’s eyes looked back at him through the scribbles, eyes that watched without seeing, that saw him without knowing him. The eyes that haunted his dreams and fueled his nightmares seemed to blink and he shook his head, clearing the fogginess that threatened him. How many times had he stared into those endless cerulean depths and wished that Therin saw him, as he was, completely? How many times had he almost blurted out those damning, horrible words because he had fallen under the spell of those eyes?
He tossed back the tea quickly, avoiding the taste as best he could. As he set the cup back down on the tray, he shuddered, the chills of his fever reaching far into his bones. He moaned as he stumbled to his bed, crawling slowly into it and sheltering under the covers. The pop and snap of the newly made fire was loud against his head, the throb of a headache threatening behind his eyelids.
Mara’s slight weight barely registered as she took a seat on the edge of his mattress. She laid a hand across his forehead and then put her fingers to his neck.
“Your pulse is quick,” she murmured. She rose and returned shortly and opened his hand. “Bleeding you will help drain the sickness,” she said and he barely felt the slice across his palm. She lay his hand in a basin filled with hot water, the heat opening his veins further. Dizziness washed across him and he tried to pull his hand free but found he could not move.
Her lips were suddenly at his ear, tickling and soft as she spoke.
“You made him very unhappy, Noran. You broke his big, dumb heart.” The smell of a match and the flare of a candle made him open the eyes which he had not realised he had let close.
“No,” he murmured and he sounded far away. His tongue was thick and stuck to the roof of his mouth.
“Shh,” she hushed him and leaned over him again, her mouth to his ear again. “I can see the darkness inside you. Devan can see it. It’s only a matter of time before your beloved Therin sees it, too.” She sat up again and lifted his immoble hand from the water, laying the still-bleeding hand on a towel. She took the basin to the desk and he must have dozed off because he started awake as she sat back down.
“Do you think,” she asked, pausing as she drew a long blade down a whetstone, the metallic ring sharp and cold and out of place in the now-too-warm room. “That he will forgive you for your betrayal when he learns of it? Or had you thought to hide your part in our separation forever?”
“How–”
“I know a lot about you, Noran.” He tried to focus his eyes on her but she was doubled, his vision swimming.
“Is that tea working? Your pupils are enormous.” She leaned over him again. “You’re very receptive to Liar’s Bane, it seems.” She stood again and he heard a quill scratching on paper. He felt like his bones were ice. He was shivering so badly now that he wished the heat of the room would penetrate him quicker.
“Maybe you’ll want to talk now?” She sat at his side again and lifted the blade to his cheek, pricking first one then another of the swollen pustules. “I’ll just hurry these painful things along as you talk. Don’t worry, you’ll only scar a little.” Blood and a vile smelling liquid dripped down his cheek.
“Stop,” he said but as he tried to shrug her off he found that he still could not move his body. He gave a small jerk and laid still.
“Oh,” she giggled, standing yet again. “The paralytic works, too!” More quill scratching preceded her return to his side. She dabbed at the seeping sores on his face with a warm, wet cloth and looked down at him, thoughtfully.
“Who was your mother?” His eyes drifted to her drunkenly. The dizziness threatened to make him throw up as he did and he closed them tightly against the nausea. “I’m going to guess that she was the one my mistress dispatched. Naughty, naughty, trying to escape the Morinn.”
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She laid her head on his chest suddenly, her long white-blond hair thrown across his arms as she listened to his heartbeat. He tried to struggle out from under her but he still could not move.
“It does beg the question, though,” she said as she sat up. “Exactly how much does Devan know? Does he suspect me yet? Am I compromised?” She lifted her head and looked into his blurred eyes. “How much do you know, Noran?” When he didn’t answer her vague questions she sat up, sighing.
“Do you know what I am?”
“Witch,” he grunted, his body tensing strangely with the word. “Morinn.”
“Did you tell Devan your suspicions?”
“No,” he said but he realised with horror that of course he should have. Why had he not?
“Very good. The suspension spell does work, then. And you know what, beautiful Noran? You won’t ever tell him. You will never tell Devan anything I don’t wish you to tell him, from this day forward. You understand?”
“Yes.” The word fell from his lips before he could stop it. The tea she had given him had made his lips pliable, loose and free.
“And Noran,” she said sweetly, putting her head on his chest again. “From tonight onward, you will be mine. You will belong to me, all of you. Your soul, your heart, your body. If I ask you to cut yourself, you should only hesitate long enough to ask how deep.”
Enthrallment.
He had read the words in one of Devan’s books and it had wracked him with horror as he read about it. The Morinn could capture your spirit, hold your mind and heart in their hands and bid you to do their every whim. It was their most powerful weapon against the Light, as far as Noran was concerned.
“At least you understand that your failure to live up to Devan’s standards are not your fault. And since your weakness for Therin makes you useless to my plans, I’ve had to improvise.” She drew a jewelled dagger from within the folds of her skirts, the blood-red stone at the end shining in the firelight.
Noran’s eyes went wide with fright and recognition. The blade was a Witch Knife, the tool with which the Morinn extracted a promise in exchange for unlocking the doorway to powerful, dark magic.
“You have a choice, though.” She held the Knife in her hands with adoration. “This is a special blade, Noran. You see, a powerful witch was able to keep herself alive, forever in stasis by putting herself in enthrallment. She managed to capture her own soul in this stone, and a few other smaller ones.” She twirled the blade, letting the gems sparkle, the strange metal glimmering with darkness. Mara met his eyes again and something softened on her face, a touch of the fervency melting into genuine affection.
“It was a process that took years of careful planning. I’m still not sure how she managed it, honestly. But she did succeed and now, like an unbound spirit caught by a witch, she resides in this gemstone pommel, awaiting the coming of Her.”
The dark reverence of which she spoke the last word made Noran’s fevered flesh crawl. The light in the room seemed to grow dimmer, the smokey fire catching in his throat.
“If you choose to accept to be the vessel, you will have access to a great store of power. You will be tapped into her own power, which in turn is tapped into the most powerful spirit ever caught. You will be linked within this web of magic and add your gifts to the pool. You and I will become Mistress and Apprentice, and my own Mistress will be your spirit-bond, something which has never been done before!” Glee lit her features but Noran found the strength to shake his head once. The light left her face.
“Let me tell you your options, shall I, before you make the choice?” She set the blade down on the side-table and folded her tiny hands serenely in her small lap.
“Firstly, you will tell Devan all of the horrible things that you have witnessed Therin and I doing. You will spare no details, but keep it simple, please, as that is more believable. You will do this with regret and sadness, of course. You will also reassure Therin that you had no hand in the miserable business, that I love him endlessly, that you will do all in your power to fix the wrongs that have been wrought. Make him believe you. It is important that he stays in love with me.
“Then, you will tell Devan that you have been approached by a Morinn witch. Surprising, I know. You will tell him your blood was recognised, that you were asked to join the coven, and that you wish to act as his double-agent. You will make him believe you as I will teach you the spell to change minds.
“Next, you will tell him that the process to become a witch will be long and drawn out, though, of course, you and I will already be joined by then. You will give him the bits of information I allow you to give him, do his bidding, and eventually, you will tell him you are a full witch. You will demonstrate your powers for him, I care not how. I will begin tonight, but I’m unsure how long this will take us.
“I will make you an apprentice tonight but it must be done…slowly. I have never done this, and I have certainly never done this with a human spirit as the bond. No one has, Noran. Isn’t that amazing? The only male witch, bound to the only human spirit, made an apprentice at such an advanced age…” Her eyes sparkled again and he thought he saw a glimmer of a tear forming in her eye.
“That is the first option.” She picked up the Knife again and smiled at him in a detached way.
Noran felt the deep ache in his bones, dulled by the drugs she had him under, and closed his eyes, prepared to hear the alternate option. He was prepared to die, if needed, in order to reject her and thwart her complicated, convoluted plans.
“The second option,” she said slowly, and he opened his eyes as she paused, afraid to see her face. “The second option, of course, is death.” He relaxed his features, oddly at peace with this option already.
“Not your death,” she whispered and he stilled, his eyes going wide. “That would be too easy. You’re already miserable. Death would be a reward.” Mara stood and made her way to the fire, stirring it with a firestick and returning to his side. “No, your death would serve no purpose.”
“I think the death of the one person you love above everything else would suffice. But a quick death it would not be. No, I’ve studied the methods of extracting information from flesh in preparation for this choice. First, he would be informed about you and your fantasies.”
“Every picture you’ve drawn of him, every thought you’ve had of him, every time you’ve ever wished to feel the warmth of his skin against yours. He would be reminded that he never had a brother, not in your eyes. No, he had a stalker, an obsessed lover who thought ceaselessly of his flesh in such ways as to make me blush.
“Because I have seen the way you look at him. I have seen the drawings. I know unrequited love when I see it. And if you think that you can bear the idea that he would die shortly after this betrayal, you have not been listening very closely.
“After he was broken from this revelation, he would slowly be dismantled, a digit at a time. Maybe each freckle would be carved from his lovely face. I have some creative ideas. Pain, with no death in sight. It’s a fine line to walk but I’ve been doing it on my own time for awhile now. There’s something so powerful in seeing the hope fade from a man’s eyes as you rip him apart…” Her own eyes went distant and Noran could almost see her reliving a horrible memory. Tears fell down his face but he could not lift a hand to wipe them.
“And if all of that doesn’t dissuade you from this choice, then I saved the best part for last.” Mara leaned over him again, bracing her hands on the bed.
“You would be there, doing all of this yourself. Your words from your mouth. Your own hand would be the one to plunge the dagger into his heart. You would face this man and take his life and you would live the rest of your life knowing you ended that which you loved the most.” She pressed her hot lips to his forehead and he trembled. “I cannot make you a witch against your will, that’s true. But I can keep you enthralled, Noran. Forever, until you die. You will be mine, no matter what.”
Mara stood again, took up the Knife and walked slowly to the fire. This time, she lifted a brand that he had not noticed, checking the end of it. It was red hot, glowing with a bloodied brightness.
“I can’t risk heating my Mistress’s soulstone,” she murmured. “If it were to crack, I’m not sure she would survive. Instead, I had this made for you.” She turned and faced him.
Mara approached the bed at a stately walk, like a bride to an altar, the knife in one hand, the brand in the other. She stood over him, the glow of the brand casting the bed in a dull ruddiness.
“We both know what choice you’re going to make, yes?” She smiled down at him, filled with pity and detached softness.
Therin’s eyes flashed into his mind, the bright blue piercing his soul as he hesitated. If he chose to end this, if he chose to deny her, she would find another way to coerce him. Maybe, after days and weeks and years of being her slave, he wouldn’t care anymore about what she would make him do to Therin.
But now, his mind mostly clear, he did care. If he accepted her, took her as a Mistress, and joined the Morinn, he could find a way to save Therin from this fate. He could thwart her as he learned more, he could become an invisible shield against Mara’s darkness. He might never know of Noran’s devotion, but he would benefit from it, thrive because of it.
Therin’s face hovered in his misted eyes, the perfect mouth a soft smile, the eyes outlined in dark golden lashes. Noran’s heart thundered painfully as he took a shuddering breath.
Therin would never know…any of it. He would always assume Noran was the villain of this. One day, perhaps, when he had been a roadblock long enough, Noran would be able to escape Mara, to tell Therin the truth. That grain of hope was buried deep within him, nurtured by his deep love of the boy who would never know how much he meant to Noran. He closed his eyes and nodded once, giving his consent to the witch.
“Promise to help me resurrect Erin,” whispered Mara with a wicked ecstasy. “Say it.” She held the Knife and brand ready.
“I promise to help you resurrect Erin,” he whispered and the Knife cut his hand where she had already sliced his palm. The pain was nothing. The brand that followed, searing and heated, was distant.
For deep inside his heart, the kernel of hope had taken root. Even as he pledged himself to Mara he promised Therin something else.
I promise to love you, forever. I promise to never stop being your invisible bulwark. As long as I breathe, I will never give up.